


By the False Azure in the Windowpane

by constantlyinflux



Category: Blade Runner (Movies), Blade Runner 2049
Genre: Gen, K is dying, but maybe that was a dumb idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 21:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12466672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantlyinflux/pseuds/constantlyinflux
Summary: There is snow. And K tries to reason with himself.





	By the False Azure in the Windowpane

**Author's Note:**

> // This marks everything that belongs to the Pale Fire Poem, not me.

//Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!  
Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake  
Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,  
A dull dark white against the day's pale white  
And abstract larches in the neutral light.  
And then the gradual and dual blue  
As night unites the viewer and the view,  
And in the morning, diamonds of frost  
Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed  
From left to right the blank page of the road?  
Reading from left to right in winter's code:  
A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat:  
Dot, arrow pointing back...A pheasant's feet!  
Torquated beauty, sublimated grouse,  
Finding your China right behind my house.//

He never thought dying could be so cold. So painful. So exhausting.

He tries to project a certain sense of peace upon himself but feels the struggle underneath, crawling under his skin, wrenching his heart and stomach. He feels sick, as if his body is revolting against his thoughts, clinging to life. Life. Clawing at the tiredness that is subduing his brain and awareness of himself. Scratching and biting until he feels bruised and bleeding. And didn't he already spill enough of his blood? He can feel it trickling down his side, warm and _alive_ , soaking into the fabric of his sweater, sticking against his skin. It's a miracle in itself. That's all it takes. A steady stream of red leaving his body and taking with it everything needed to work this construct of bone and flesh and veins. The pain keeps him on edge. It hurts. A dull, throbbing burn in his abdomen, searing hot pain in his right side that makes it hard to breathe. He struggles. Fights to focus on the falling snow. Flakes. Specks of white drifting down to him, catching against his eyelashes, landing on his cheeks and chin and forehead, the split-second of a touch, too short to even register as cold, before they melt. They tumble before his eyes, swirl, mix. Myriads of them. Cells. Until they blend into one another and he's barely able to distinguish them from the dull white sky. He feels the urge to open his mouth whenever one falls on his slightly parted lips, knowing full well they would never suffice to quench his thirst, even if the water would be clean. Myriads of them and they wouldn't be enough. He never thought dying would make you so thirsty. He tries to focus on them, but it hurts _so much_ and he blinks and that moment is gone. A ragged breath wrenches itself out of his lungs, sucking in more air and ending in a rasped moan when his ribs expand just that inch more than he can bear. It catches in his throat and he closes his eyes, struggling to keep quiet. He can feel a tear rolling down his temple and trickle away into his hairline, leaving a trail, one instant warm, the next cold. An emotional response so recurring in the past days as it had been rare in all the years prior. He wonders if the pain will stay until the end or if the cold will grant him with a dull blanket of numbness before. He's not sure how long he's been lying here now, but his fingertips have gone numb. His feet, too. He can barely feel his legs except for a slow, hot burn. The same that stings his cheeks and prickles at the back of his hands. They say the last thing you feel before you freeze to death is the sensation of burning alive. They never said how thirsty you would be. The things he would do for just one sip of water. He swallows, gags on the coarseness of his throat, like raw skin grazing against ragged wood. They also never said how long it would take. They do say however waiting allows for the most possible lengthening of time and that he can feel. The past days felt longer than all of his life before, implanted memories and all. But this, this is eternity. He wonders if he might just lie here until the world ends, stuck to these steps, a frozen statue forever gazing into the sky. A weird thought crosses his mind then because _just get up_ and he almost laughs but that turns into coughing up blood, a gush of copper coating his lips. Not sure, if he'd even be able to stand now that he thinks about it. It doesn't feel like his body would respond to anything anymore. The steps dig into his shoulders and back, hips and thighs. Where they connect resides a blunt pain so intense he's stopped thinking about it. The frozen stone under his head seems to seep into his skull. He's sure that if he turns his head he'd hear his frozen hair prickle while breaking. Unbidden words float into his sense of time and space.

//But all at once it dawned on me that this  
Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;  
Just this: not text, but texture; not the dream  
But topsy-turvical coincidence,  
Not flimsy nonsense, but a web of sense.//

The urge to open his eyes now. Now. _Do it._ And he panics when he can't. There's nothing there to open anymore. He's trapped inside the dark, his thoughts tumbling against a black wall in a black world, hitting a transparent window again and again and again. Dull thuds and he's _screaming_. And yet _isn't this what you wanted?_ His wails echo off against dark structures, back at him, multiply in millions. The loudest silence ever heard. He's suffocating. A blanket of _softthicksweet_ nothingness engulfs him, eyes, ears, nose, mouth. He can't breathe. // _Where are you?_ // He can't feel. // _In the garden. I can see_ // He can't think. // _Part of your shadow near the shagbark tree._ // He's so tired _let it end_. He's tumbling. Falling. Drifting. He is so scared. _Oh you did you did. Do they keep you in a little box? Little box. Fine without one. Never seen a tree before it's pretty. Pretty. Fucking skinjob. Prettyfuckingskinjob. More human. A wall. More human than human. Cause you've never seen a miracle. Miracle. Stranger. You've got to be a stranger. A child bornwantedloved. Don't know ask him. A real boygoodjoewhoamitoyou?_

_Who am I to you?_

Snow crunching next to his ear. Synthetic soles. Heavy. Slow. Careful. Raspy breath.

"You still there, kid?"

K blinks his eyes open.


End file.
